Speakers for producing clean energy from indigenous resources

Speakers at a conference at the Government College University Lahore on "future prospects of clean energy in Pakistan" laid a stress on research on producing clean energy from indigenous resources. The one-day conference was organised by the university Electrical Engineering Department where eminent industrialists and energy experts presented different views about the challenges faced by Pakistan and other under-developing countries in going green for their energy requirements.
In his opening remarks, Engr Almas Haider, the former member Engineering Development Board and NTDC, said energy security should be Pakistan's priority instead of just clean energy. "We should prefer generating energy from our available resources whether its coal, wind or solar instead of relying on imports," he said.
Engr Haider, who developed the 'Engineering Vision 2012 for Pakistan', said that Pakistan had been importing about $14b oil and gas every year which was the root cause all foreign loan. He said that in case of war Pakistan could face severe energy crisis. He said the previous governments in Pakistan had only added oil power generation projects, and even power generation plants had been installed away from the power consumption centers without any planning. However, he said that, slowly things are improving now and future would be certainly better.
Engr Haider said that Pakistan had huge potential for coal power production, and now technology for producing power from all kinds of coal was available. He said that world over countries had been producing power from even least efficient coals. However, Pakistan Engineering Council Chairman Engr. Jawed Salim Qureshi believed that Pakistan was moving in opposite direction from the world in energy sector, where smart grids were getting popular with energy source on the rooftop of very house or building causing no line-losses of billions of rupees and transportation cost. "Use the energy you want, and send the excess to the national grid via smart meters. This is what the world is planning or doing," he said.
Engr. Qureshi also said that the sustainable energy solution for Pakistan was only in solar, wind and hydropower mix. "We don't need energy from any other source in the long term," he said, laying a stress on the government to build national consensus on all dams including Kalabagh.
The PEC Chairman said that engineers were the only community in Pakistan which didn't yet get service structure. He said that there were 50,000 jobless engineers in Pakistan, and demanded the government to announce national internship program for the engineers.
Engr. Qureshi said that PEC had made it mandatory for all CPEC projects to appoint seventy percent of the engineers from Pakistan. "And, I assure we will get this clause implemented," he said. Talking about accreditation process for universities' engineering programs, the PEC chairman said that "it is very unfortunate for Pakistan that education has developed as one of the most profitable businesses here, and there are very few private institutions which are working truly for the promotion of education.
Vice Chancellor Professor Dr Hassan Amir Shah said GCU had been seriously deliberating on going solar, and would soon initiate a pilot project in this regard. He said that GCU electrical engineering program was relatively new, but their first few batches of graduates had done very well in the market.
GCU Dean Faculty of Engineering Professor Dr Raiz Ahmad, Dr Syed Aun Abbas, Engr. Suleman Najeeb, Engr. Shahid Hussain and Dr Hassa J. Zaidi also addressed the seminar on the topics of rural grid evolution, challenges for hydropower generation and wind as renewable energy source.